Celebrities Who Are Afraid of Needles, and What Helps

If you have ever felt slightly ridiculous about dreading a five second injection, it may help to know that the same feeling turns up in people who are paid to look fearless. An actress who trained as a boxer for a role, an action star who has kept filming on broken bones, and a screen icon who has spent seventy years in an industry built on cosmetic touch ups have all said, on the record, that needles frighten them.

That is not a fun fact about famous people. It is a reasonable summary of how common the fear is. Needle fear is one of the most widely reported fears there is, it holds up across ages and countries, and it has been measured often enough that treating it as a character flaw makes very little sense. Here are three people who said it out loud, and what the research says about everyone else.

Sydney Sweeney says she is terrified of needles

Asked repeatedly about rumours of cosmetic work, Sweeney has given the same answer more than once. "I've never gotten anything done. I'm absolutely terrified of needles. No tattoos. Nothing," she told Variety in October 2025. Two months later she put it to Allure even more bluntly, saying she has never had work done and adding, "I am so scared of needles, you have no idea."

Notice what she is actually describing. Not a preference, not a stance on ageing. The fear is simply the reason a whole ordinary category of things, tattoos included, has never happened to her. That is what needle fear tends to look like in adults. It rarely announces itself. It shows up as a list of things quietly not done.

Jackie Chan does his own stunts and still dreads the syringe

Jackie Chan built a career out of injuries most people would treat as an emergency and he treats as scheduling. He kept filming Rumble in the Bronx with a broken ankle, hidden under a sock painted to look like a trainer. Skull fracture, dislocations, burns, all of it is part of the legend.

Needles are the exception, and he has never been coy about it. In interviews he has kept the description simple, saying the sight of one is enough to make him feel faint. He talked about it with Conan O'Brien too, in a clip Team Coco still files under a summary that says it all, that he is all for doing his own death defying stunts but do not come near him with a needle.

There is something clarifying about that pairing. Courage is not one single substance you either have or lack. Blood and injection fear runs on its own track, mostly separate from whatever else a person can face.

Joan Collins calls herself needle-phobic

Joan Collins has spent decades being asked what she has had done. Her answer, given to the Guardian in 2023, was short. "I've had nothing done. I couldn't do all that. First of all, I'm needle-phobic." She has repeated the point since, saying she does not believe in needles and has never had Botox in her face, and crediting moisturiser, night cream and staying out of the sun instead.

Collins has been open that she tried Botox once, years ago, and hated it. What survives across every version of the story is the same first reason. Before any philosophy about ageing, there is the needle.

How common is fear of needles

Common enough that these three are unremarkable. The most cited overview is a 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, which pooled 119 studies. It found that the majority of children show needle fear, with estimates of roughly 20 to 50 percent in adolescents and 20 to 30 percent in young adults. Fear generally decreased as people got older, and was reported more often in women than men.

The numbers vary a lot between studies, and it is worth saying why rather than picking the scariest one. Mild dread, strong fear and a diagnosable phobia are not the same thing, and a survey that lumps them together will always produce a bigger figure than one that does not.

What is more consistent is what the fear does. The same review found people skipping influenza vaccination because of needles, including 16 percent of adult patients and 27 percent of hospital employees. In 2021, an Oxford team surveying more than 15,000 UK adults reported in Psychological Medicine that people who screened positive for blood, injection and injury phobia were about twice as likely to be hesitant about a COVID-19 vaccine, and estimated that injection fears could account for around 10 percent of hesitancy across the population. We have written more about that quiet avoidance in why so many adults avoid blood tests.

The fear is not a failure of nerve

Most fears push the body one way. Blood and injection fear often pushes it the other. Rather than a sustained spike in heart rate and blood pressure, some people experience a sharp drop, which is why fainting features in this fear far more than in almost any other. That reaction is not something a person decides on, and being told to relax does not touch it. Clinics that deal with it often, blood donation centres in particular, tend to plan around it instead, which we covered in how to keep people from fainting during blood draws.

It also explains the shape of the celebrity examples. Chan can fall off a clock tower. Sweeney trained for months to fight on camera. Neither of those is the same nervous system event as watching a needle approach your arm.

What people say makes a visit easier

People who have made a kind of peace with blood draws tend to describe the same unglamorous short list. They say it out loud to the person taking the blood, because nobody can adjust for something they do not know about. They ask to lie down or recline. They look away and give their attention something else to hold. They bring someone. They book early, so the dread has less of the day to grow in.

Researchers have tried to package this properly. A Canadian framework called CARD, short for Comfort, Ask, Relax, Distract, was tested in a large cluster randomised trial in school immunisation clinics and reported lower fear among students in the CARD schools. The effect was on the experience of the appointment rather than on the fear as a lifelong trait, which is roughly the honest claim to make about most of these approaches. Our fuller list is in seven ways to feel calmer about needles.

Why clinics are starting to design around it

For a clinic, needle fear is not a mood. It is late arrivals, longer appointments, repeat sticks, cancelled lab work and donors who never return. Once you accept that a meaningful share of the people in the waiting room are managing something, the design question changes from how to hurry them along to what the room offers them instead.

That is the space SendorVR is built for. It is a short virtual reality activity a nurse can start in a few seconds, so there is somewhere kinder for attention to go during the moment of the procedure, and the tray is out of view. It is a comfort amenity, not a medical device, and all the care in the room stays with the clinicians. If Jackie Chan needed a tetanus shot tomorrow, he would still need the shot. He might just get to look at something else.

If you recognised yourself in any of this, the more useful reading is probably scared of needles, you are not alone, which collects people describing it in their own words.

FAQ

What is the fear of needles called?

It is usually called trypanophobia, and in clinical research it often sits inside the broader category of blood, injection and injury phobia. Many people who dread needles would not meet the threshold for a diagnosed phobia, which is part of why prevalence estimates differ so much between studies.

Which celebrities have said they are afraid of needles?

Sydney Sweeney, Jackie Chan and Joan Collins have all discussed it publicly. Sweeney has cited it as the reason she has no tattoos or injectables, Chan has described feeling faint at the sight of a syringe, and Collins has called herself needle-phobic when asked about cosmetic procedures.

Why do some people faint at the sight of a needle?

Blood and injection fear is unusual in that it can involve a drop in heart rate and blood pressure rather than a rise. That drop is what leads to lightheadedness and fainting in some people, and it is a physical reaction rather than a decision.

Does being afraid of needles mean something is wrong with you?

No. It is one of the most commonly reported fears in the research literature, it is most common in childhood, and a substantial minority of adults carry it with them. Plenty of people who are unbothered by heights, public speaking or physical risk still dread a blood draw.

Can you get over a fear of needles?

Many people find appointments become more manageable with preparation, position, distraction and a clinician who knows about the fear before starting. Anyone whose fear is causing them to avoid medical care they need is best served by talking to a healthcare professional about it.